We asked NC lawmakers for one day of their communications. Read their emails here.
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A test of transparency
The state budget passed by North Carolina legislators includes a new provision that gives lawmakers the authority to decide what public records, if any, to reveal. In this special report, The News & Observer tested how responsive lawmakers would be under the new provision.
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Update: Emails from Sens. Gale Adcock, Mary Wills Bode and Julie Mayfield, and Rep. Robert Reives that were provided before publication and did not appear in this story initially have now been added.
After GOP lawmakers moved last year to fully exempt themselves from the state’s public records law, The News & Observer filed public records requests with every state lawmaker to see which legislators would continue to opt for transparency.
The N&O requested all 170 members of the North Carolina House and Senate to provide all of their communications from Sept. 19, the day that Republican leaders reached an agreement on the state budget after months of negotiations.
Since The N&O filed those requests in mid-October, a total of 38 lawmakers from both parties provided their records from that day. (Reps. Pricey Harrison, Lindsey Prather and Ya Liu and Sen. Graig Meyer provided their records after publication.)
Some lawmakers provided hundreds of pages of emails, while others provided just a handful.
Others shared some emails but withheld communications with other lawmakers or staff, citing “legislative privilege.”
The N&O has published all of the emails it has received, redacting only personal identifying information of constituents who wrote to lawmakers.
View emails from House and Senate members below. This story will be updated if The N&O receives additional records after publication.
This story was originally published January 10, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "We asked NC lawmakers for one day of their communications. Read their emails here.."
